Like Father, Like Daughter
by JoeBabyFyrestorm
Summary: What happens when I get an idea in my head that won't leave me alone? What happens if the Joes get into a bit of trouble and need a little help to get themselves bailed out?
1. Chapter 1

It was the Tuesday a week and a half before Spring Break, and the students at Fort Delta High School had just gotten some bad news. Classes had been canceled until after Spring Break because most of their parents had been captured and were being held hostage by Cobra.

"Well, you two are the oldest of us all, so basically that means you're in charge. Does anyone have any ideas about what we can do?" asked the blond girl, Avery Forrest, sitting on the arm of the couch, the youngest female of the group at eleven and a half.

Sixteen-year-old EJ Steen and his twin sister, AJ, looked at the assemblage of teen and tweenagers grouped around the basement rec room in the dorm.

"I have no ideas about what to do," he stated forlornly.

"Where's my sign?" asked AJ, suddenly.

"Sign? What sign? I don't see any sign," Crispin Hauser deadpanned. A tall, bronze haired girl that had been leaning against the wall reached forward and smacked him in the back of the head.

"This is serious, Hauser," she growled, baring her teeth.

"Knock it off, Barney," Blair Parker stated. "That's why the Cobras are always getting their butts kicked- dissension in the ranks."

Jamie Barney flashed her a bit of sign language that everybody in the room understood. "Bite me," she growled, laughing.

"The one that says 'Bang Head Here' in the center of a bull's-eye, dorkwad. I can't believe that I'm actually that stupid sometimes. What do we have on our side that Cobra doesn't?" asked AJ after a couple of minutes' thought.

"Um, brains?" Jamie offered. "Guts? Nuts?"

Everyone else looked at her like she'd flipped her lid.

"Okay, for those who don't have the ability to think like me, what we have on our side is the element of surprise and we have the decent training that they don't. What is the one thing that Cobra would never expect? Heck, what would our parents never expect? Us. For us to be the ones to bust them out," AJ explained, excitedly.

"Well, AJ," Christine Abernathy started, "How would we be able to infiltrate the base? There's quite a few in here that can't be quiet to save their own lives, much less our parents'."

"Simple," EJ stated, catching on to his twin's thought process, "It's Spring Break starting Monday week, so if we all just go home tonight, it won't be anything unusual. We can just say that they let us out early for the holiday. After that we just start grouping at our house to 'study'. Nothing wrong with that."

AJ reached for her notebook and turns to an empty page near the back, beginning to draw diagrams and notes in her own shorthand which was only known to herself and her friends.

"Ooh, can we use code names, like they do?" asked DJ Faireborn, acting stupid for a change.

"Heck, why not?" answered EJ. "DJ, you'll be Diplomat, because you can talk your way out of just about anything. Christine, you're Rottweiler, 'cause when you sink your teeth into something, you don't let go. Cheyenne, you're Illusion, Serena, you're Apache, Jamie- Shortstop, Wendy- Freefall, Crispin- Mountie, AJ- you're the Painkiller, Tommie can be Klutz, Ericka, you can be TNT, because you are dynamite in more ways than one, Ritchie, you'll be known as Phantasm and I'll be known as Overdose." He names off more of the kids and AJ writes them into the notebook that she's scribbling in.

"And yes, Sydney will be included. I think she'll be called 'Spearfish', and Trini, you'll be Earthmover," EJ concluded, also signing the statement to the deaf girl.

"Everyone go pack a duffle with at least a week's worth of clothes and underneath them, and in between layers, our knives and assorted other weaponry that you think we'll need. Cheyenne, Ritchie, we will definitely need your lockpick kits, and Jamie, bring that little pocket laser that you've been working on. Trini, don't forget your toolkit," declared AJ. The group breaks up and each teen heads to their dorm room to pack.


	2. Chapter 2

"Are you sure we're doing the right thing? Are we really up to taking on Cobra ourselves?" Christine asked AJ while they otherwise silently packed their bags in the bedroom of their dorm room.

"We really don't have any choice. Anyway, we've trained all our lives to fight Cobra, and even our parents won't know that we're the ones that are getting them out or that we're even capable of doing it. Remember, your dad told Snake Eyes to keep our training secret."

"True," answered Christine. "So, are we going to convoy or what? I know that Dad paid for all of our cars as his birthday presents for all of us and that they are all up-armored, so we pretty well need them." She was referring to AJ's ragtop Jeep Rubicon, EJ's H3, her own Range Rover, Jamie's ragtop Grand Cherokee, Trini's 'Redneck-mobile' and the various others' vehicles.

"Tell you in a minute," answered AJ as she picked up the room's telephone, dialed her brother's room and asked him for advice.

"Considering how many of us and how many of them, we'll need every bit of horsepower we can get."

"Wait a minute. Christine, since when are we driving up-armors?" retorted AJ, turning from the phone and looking at her roommate with a raised eyebrow.

"Dad paid for each of our vehicles to be up-armored and had bulletproof glass put in because he wanted to make sure that we had what we needed if anything happened and that we were protected if anything DID happen," Christine calmly explained.

"I don't know why I never noticed it before; the way Trini's always rolling her truck," AJ laughed.

"Hmm, that decides it. We take all of our vehicles," EJ snarled.

"Agreed." answered AJ, hanging up. She turns to Christine, "Tell the rest of the girls- bikini tops, shorts and convoy. We'll start the distractions. Better yet, call them all in here for a meeting. I've got a couple of ideas to run by them."

A short while later the eldest group of girls- Christine Abernathy, Cheyenne Provost, Serena Armbruster, Sydney Willoughby, Randi Pulaski, Wendy Talltree, Chelsey Wilkinson, Jamie Barney, Bobbie Sue Graves, Barbara Ann Graves, Trinity Blais and Ericka Freistadt were gathered in the bedroom waiting for AJ to start with her ideas. The younger girls would be getting their orders a few minutes later.

Over in the Boys' wing, the guys were getting basically the same orders.

"I know that Dad wouldn't approve under most circumstances, but I think that this time he'd probably let me get away with it. It's a good thing that all of the vehicles have numerous hidden compartments. We need to keep the guys pretty much free from any sort of deep inspection, and the easiest way to do it is to be the flirtatious femme fatales that we are. Make sure we show a lot of skin and take our flirting to the limit. If we can get any of them alone, make sure that you have a way to knock them out. Jamie, I don't think you'll have a problem with that."

In response, Jamie Barney cracked her knuckles and grinned a demonic grin. "No problem at all." Almost exactly a week younger than the Steen twins, she was the most physically powerful of the Joe kids, as well as the fastest and ranked as one of the smartest as well. Only one other Joe kid outdid her at agility, and that was Trinity Blais, who could squirm into the most uncomfortable positions to work on a vehicle.


	3. Chapter 3

A couple of hours later, the rumble of numerous engines is heard as the teens cross onto the Pit. All of the girls are wearing short shorts or skirts and bikini tops; and the guys are shirtless with mostly cutoff shorts among them except for one or two pair of jeans.

AJ's Rubicon is leading the pack, and EJ's Hummer is bringing up the rear as the convoy arrives back at the base. Sydney, who had been born stone deaf, was riding with her best friend Cheyenne.

Just for a laugh, and because Serena, Ericka, and Jamie dared her to, AJ goes airborne over the lowered crossing gate, her long raven-black hair flowing in the wind. She skids in a one-eighty degree spin to a stop not far from and uses her remote to raise the gate for the others. As a Cobra lackey comes up to find out who she is and what she wants on the base, she lowers her sunglasses and looks at him, the expression on her face one of pure haughtiness and boredom.

A couple of the other kids slip onto the base through the other gates.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" he snarls at her.

AJ grabs the roll bar and pulls herself up, flips over the door and arches over the side mirror, landing on her feet like a cat beside her jeep. "I'm AJ and I live here on the base. I told Dad that I'd come back and help him in the office during Spring Break, which starts Monday."

Since AJ was tall and slim like her father, all of her muscle hidden, the guy thought that he would have no problem at all controlling her.

"And what about the rest of those following you?" he queried.

"They all live here, we all go to the same school, and we all promised our parents that we would help out here whenever we were on vacation or had time off. Duh!" AJ answered, crossing her arms just underneath her bikini top, when she suddenly caught his eyes wandering downward. Exactly what she was counting on.

"All right, jerk. My eyes are up here, not down there. Who's your commanding officer and where is he? I could have you demoted and thrown out for sexual harassment," she barked at him, sounding more like Beach Head than her dad- the quiet, laid-back, almost meek Lifeline.

The rest of the kids had a hard time keeping straight faces as they drove past, watching AJ pick this guy to pieces. Especially EJ. "_Damn, she almost sounds more like Old Witch in Heat than she does Dad,"_ he thought as he sped past.

"Um, uh, well, um...ah…" the guy stammered, trying to regain his footing in an argument that he'd already lost, and when AJ's fist swung around, he didn't see it. All he saw was her shoulder bunch and then nothing for a few hours.

When he finally woke up, he was bound and gagged with his own clothes in the corner of a deserted basement. He could hear footsteps and noises like someone rearranging furniture in the rooms above him.

Somehow, he finally managed to wriggle around enough to free his communicator and managed to grunt into it enough to let their communications officer know that he was in trouble.

Rance Steinberg had been tasked with guarding this guy and just happened to be on the other side of the shelving, unseen to the lackey, and heard everything that the Cobra lackey had done. He came around the corner and kicked the guy in the head, knocking him senseless, and out cold again. He then rushed upstairs and let AJ know what had happened.

AJ called the rest of the group, and they all managed to meet at the Steen twins' house. Most of them knew that they were being followed, and they all played their roles to the hilt.

Carrie challenged Jamie to a motorcycle race using their dads' bikes, a drag meet down the main roads of the base. Jamie had never met a challenge that she didn't like and heartily agreed. The rest of the kids would be stationed around the base at certain points to 'watch' the race.

Could Grand Slam's Harley Racing bike under the direction of his daughter, Jamie, beat Rock N Roll's Kawasaki Ninja, under the direction of his daughter, Carrie?

Not only did the kids have bets on who would win, but quite a few of the Cobra troopers who would be stationed around the 'track' put money down on their choice of riders.

The Cobras were fooled. None of them even gave the kids a second glance- something else that the teens were counting on.


	4. Chapter 4

During the days, the kids made sure that each vehicle's tank was filled and ready to go. Most days they would hang out at the pool for a while, or maybe they played a game of sandlot baseball out on the baseball diamond, shirts (girls) versus skins (guys), and then go to the Steen house to study. Actually, what they were 'studying' was their targets and plans. They would also practice their fighting techniques in the empty living room. Jamie was the sparring dummy for the group.

As night fell, each teenager slipped into the area where their parents worked and "appropriated" various weapons and supplies, and smuggled them out to their old fort in the woods, which was basically a scaled down version of 'the Pit', complete with much of the same technology. AJ and her brother got enough first aid supplies to sink the Bismarck, but they knew that they had to be ready for any contingency.

Jamie had been crawling around in the Pit's air ducts and everything, rigging surprises and playing with the wiring to certain equipment, rigging it to fire on her command and her command only. She'd had some of the younger, smaller teens (Chelsey, Mickey, Adam, Blair, Lindsay, Avery and Greg) helping her. She'd drawn and written diagrams and directions on how to do it, so that she wouldn't have to do it all herself, and wouldn't have to be right there, hanging over their shoulders. It was good to have a degree in electronics engineering before you graduated high school. Thank goodness for night classes.

The race came off as expected, both bikes and riders as skilled as everybody thought they were. It was a tight race, until the last corner. Jamie leaned a little too far over and wiped out. No major damage was done to the bike, and all Jamie had was a bit of road rash on her right leg.

Nobody realized that she had wiped out on purpose. She'd seen something that she needed to take a closer look at and take care of.

She stood up and unbuckled her helmet, slinging it across the road and almost taking out a flowerpot on a windowsill when it shot between two houses. She acted so frustrated that even some of the kids thought that this was one of those rare occurrences where she had finally lost her temper; in reality, she was stone cold, calm and calculating on the inside.

She stomped over and retrieved her helmet, snarling like a mad dog when she crossed paths with another human. Looking at the place where her helmet had come to rest, she realized what she would need to do- set up a couple of mines and tripwires in the alleys. Then she walked back to where the bike had skidded to a stop and picked it up, congratulated Carrie on her win, and walked the bike back to her house.

The Cobras were starting to get suspicious when they realized that none of the kids seemed to be doing anything out of the ordinary. They were just acting like typical teens. This made the commanding officer of the Cobras for this operation- Major Bludd- uneasy for some reason. He ordered some of his troops to infiltrate the house and find out what was going on. None of them ever reported back.

As the Cobra vipers slipped into the house, seemingly unseen, all they find is a group of students studying together, tutoring each other. They even came across a few couples that had separated from the main group, and were making out, like Crispin and Randi, EJ and Christine or AJ and Ritchie, even. Whenever Major Bludd would send one of his lackeys to investigate what was going on, one of the kids would waylay them and knock them out.

One of the Cobra lackeys had been stupid enough to burst in on Jamie while she was taking a shower; the idiot had brandished a weapon and tried for something. Bad move. The kids didn't expect him to live through the night, but they knew that it was self-defense, or Jamie would have held back and just KO'd him.

Major Bludd finally got fed up with it and went in himself after his last goon didn't return with information, only to find himself facing down Lifeline's daughter, AJ, and her boyfriend, Chuckles' son, Ritchie. Utilizing all of the tricks that they had learned over the years, they took him apart piece by piece.

Clutching the keys to the brig closely to her chest, AJ calmly stepped into the room with the others. She holds them up in triumph and tells the others to go get dressed, they move at nightfall. It was Saturday afternoon.


	5. Chapter 5

The party broke up and everyone went their different ways, slipping back after darkness fell. All of them had taken advantage of their parents' equipment, and were ready for anything. All were wearing face paint and camouflage. You wouldn't have been able to see them if you weren't looking specifically for them, and the Cobra troopers had no idea what to look for, except for maybe a couple of brightly colored pieces of clothing.

Some of the girls had intentionally done laundry, hanging it outside in the backyards to dry. It was spooky enough, and threw many a Cobra off, especially after a slight breeze began to blow.

Trini had actually done the unspeakable- she'd washed her dad's jeans. NOBODY washed Cross-Country's jeans but himself; not even his wife, Alyssa, messed with them. She and Trini would throw them into a pile for him to do, but that was the most they had to do with them.

"Trini! You got a death wish or something?" AJ yelled, laughing, as she hung her laundry up across the back fence from Trini.

"I was born with a death wish, AJ!" Trini yelled back, also laughing.

The younger Joe teens, with Sydney in charge, had already snuck off of the base and were out at the old fort in the woods, getting everything ready for the older ones, and taking care of the weaponry until the older teens got there. They flipped the switches charging the laser cannons, gathered the mortar rounds and filled magazines of ammo for the incoming teams, adults and teens.

After breaking up into pairs and heading for their targets, each of the older teens reflects on what was going to happen when their parents found out that it was their own children that were rescuing them. There was one odd man out, but she worked better alone than in a pair.

AJ just knew that her dad was going to kill her and her brother. Trini knew that she'd be grounded till she was fifty at the rate she was going.

Christine was thinking along the same lines as AJ, the same as most of the other kids were thinking.

Ericka felt the same as the other two, and so did Serena Armbruster, Rance Steinberg, Ritchie Provost, his twin sister Cheyenne, and Chelsey Wilkinson.

Jamie, on the other hand, didn't really care what happened afterward. She was dead any way you looked at the situation, so she figured that she had nothing to lose by putting herself at risk and into the middle of the trouble.

She was also playing mind games with the Cobras, rigging the base intercom to the radio in her jeep, playing off-beat and odd songs at the oddest moments and keeping them guessing where and when the next song was going to be. She'd burned a CD of midi files that she'd had on her computer, and had put it in on the random setting. From the heavy bass, causing light and power fluctuations, to the cartoon themes out of nowhere during the radio communications, she'd rigged things well. She said a silent thank you to the kids that had helped her by re-rigging and messing with the wiring.


	6. Chapter 6

As Painkiller slipped into the hallway of the brig, she could hear the sound of flesh striking flesh. When she heard the words being screamed, AJ silently snarled and Illusion softly put her hand on AJ's forearm.

"Now I'm really pissed," AJ whispered, her eyes flashing. Illusion moved her hand to AJ's upper arm and jerked her close to her and back deeper into the shadows.

"It's okay, Painkiller. Just chill. If you go off the deep end, we'll never succeed," she hissed.

Painkiller slowly takes a deep breath and even more slowly blows it out, centering herself again. "You're right. I'm sorry. Let's get this show on the road. The faster we get done, the faster we can get the heck out of Dodge."

The lights flickered as a bass riff that was uniquely Jamie Barney ripped through the building out of nowhere. "Oh, she's good," Cheyenne mouthed to AJ, who nodded in agreement. It was never spoken, but the pair knew that this was the countdown start signal.

Jamie and Ericka had put their lives on the line repeatedly during the last few nights, making and setting up the explosives. Since Jamie didn't need much sleep at all, she'd volunteered for this job. Every night, they'd mix the explosives and then Jamie would sneak out and place them where they wouldn't do so much damage to any of the Joes' equipment, but would totally destroy the Cobras', and they'd provide an adequate diversion and cover for some of the activities. The girls had even been gutsy enough to set up a few 'tiny' little practical jokes with the leftover explosives that they had, and a few chemlights that they had found lying around the machine shop. Never let it be said that Shortstop or TNT didn't have a sense of humor.

The other kids joked that Jamie had read waaaay too many of her dad's comic books. She'd drawn the word "ACME" on the explosives big enough, and was just waiting for the Cobras to start acting like cartoon characters when they found them, if they even found them before they went off.

Knowing where each of the security cameras were placed, as well as the ones that she had placed, Jamie had deliberately let herself be caught by a couple of Cobra goons. She led them on a merry chase around the base in a cartoon-like way.

Each girl counts down on her hand. When they each reach zero, explosions sound across the base from them. Jamie and Ericka had timed it perfectly, as always. The majority of the Cobra troops rushed out, leaving a skeleton crew that was easily knocked out by the heroines.

Illusion keeps an eye out while Painkiller unlocks the cell doors and whispers instructions to the occupants. When she gets to last cell, the door is already open and Tomax is still standing inside, kicking the crap out of Lifeline, who is lying bloody and badly beaten on the floor of the cell. She can hear ribs crack under the force of the kicks.

Painkiller takes a deep breath and steels herself, leaping inside, onto Tomax's back and striking downwards with all the strength in her elbows on either side of his neck, knocking him out; and with him his twin, Xamot (wherever he was on the base), at the same instant. As he falls, she lands on her feet and assists Illusion with helping Lifeline out of the cell.

"I've got first aid kits in my car," she states. "As soon as we can get away from here to begin plotting to retake the Pit, I'll use them. Lifeline, do you think you can manage until then?"

Blood streaming from his nose and mouth, and deep, dark bruises forming all over his body, he slowly nods. "I can…I can hold on," he chokes out, spitting up blood from where he'd bitten the inside of his cheek.

Neither girl is winded as he slumps in their arms while they carry him out and put him into AJ's Jeep. By this time, he's almost unconscious. Painkiller hands Illusion the pistol that she had been carrying.

The kids had literally broken into their parents' stashes and grabbed whatever weapons they could get their hands on that were usable. AJ and her brother EJ had their father's pistols and medical kits; Jamie had all four of her parents' pistols, and her dad's mobile laser cannon, which she'd attached to the roll bar of her Cherokee, rigging it to be rotated and fired with a flick of her thumbs on the steering wheel; Ericka had her parents' firearms and dad's mortar tube; and so on. Every single one of them had more than twenty extra magazines of ammo that they'd scrounged up. They had the advantage of way superior firepower if they really needed it, although they preferred to use their definite advantage of superior brainpower instead.

Trini had actually managed to get a Battle Wagon repaired and into the mix, fighting her way off of the base and off road, parking it where she could get to it at a moment's notice and slipped behind the wheel of her 'rednecked' pickup and driving right back onto the base and into the fight. The few Cobras that didn't get out of her way became speed bumps as she recklessly and relentlessly went after whatever target she could find.

"Cover us," AJ orders, as she straps Lifeline in and slaps a couple of pressure bandages into place. Illusion grabs the roll bar and hauls herself into the rear of the jeep just as a contingent of snakes comes around the corner, chasing Klutz. He leaps into the jeep beside Illusion.

Painkiller and Illusion began to chuckle as they saw one of the two motorcycles appear from nowhere and zap a few Cobras with one of the pocket lasers that had been attached. They knew who the riders were, and were thankful for the cover fire as they sped across the base.

Painkiller rolls over the hood and slides behind the wheel, twisting the key and bringing the machine to life. She slams her way through the gears, power-shifting as she squeals away; leaving rubber on the asphalt.

She slaloms her way around the base, dodging unfriendly fire from the Cobras, praying that the armor would hold as they reach the gatehouse and realize that the crossing bar is down and that there is a huge mass of snakes in front of them.

"Hang on!" she yells. "If I can't go over, under or around them, the only way to go is through them. Illusion, Klutz, keep your heads down and your guns spraying." Painkiller never lets off of the gas as she goes straight for the crowd and slams her way through the Cobras, never stopping to look back as she smashes through the crossing bar.

She looks in the rearview mirror and curses as she sees that they've gotten their heads out of their butts long enough to send someone to follow the escaping Joes. She cranks the wheel hard left and goes off-road. Meanwhile, Illusion is on the radio to the rest of the teams.

"We're four by four, and we'll be coming in the back way to the meeting place."

"Affirmative, Illusion, we read you, and we've got your message. We'll have an opening as soon as you get here. Do you need cover fire at your location?" Shortstop radios back to them. She had been one of the motorcycle riders, having been the one that had rigged the pocket lasers to the bikes to do some damage in the first place.

"Negative, Stop. Painkiller says she has everything under control," Illusion sent. There was no way on God's green earth that she was going to call Jamie short, capital S or not.

"Got it. Jeez, I'm getting bored here. I need a target," Shortstop whined with a laugh.

After leading the Cobras on a merry chase, Painkiller turns her head and tells the other three in the Jeep, "Hold on, you three. We're going to catch some serious air here, a la 'Dukes of Hazzard'."

Klutz, Lifeline and Illusion grab onto whatever they can reach and hold on for dear life. AJ heads for the ravine and creek bed calculating trajectories and ratios in her mind.

It was at least thirty foot deep; maybe fifteen wide, twenty at the max, with a homemade ramp on the near side that most of the kids used when trail biking, which was a favorite pastime.

"Use my tailgate if you have to, Painkiller," Earthmover's voice rumbled through the radio. "I'm on my way through."

"Well, let's see if that old ramp will hold a jeep," Painkiller said with a small grin. She aims the jeep for the ramp and hits true. Lifeline covers his eyes and mumbles to himself.

"Oh Lord. She's gonna kill us all," he whimpers.

"Relax, man. We're on the other side and on land again," laughs Illusion, patting him on the shoulder as AJ swings the jeep around to watch the fireworks.

Painkiller rides out the bump of their landing and slews around to watch the Cobra vehicles land quite short of their targets. Apparently, they hadn't seen the ramp or Painkiller's use of it.

"Idiots," mutters Lifeline.

"You got that right," the girls chorus in stereo.

"Who are you?" he asks as they head off down the dirtbike trail to meet up with the rest of the group.

"They call me Painkiller, and the two behind you are Illusion and Klutz. You'll find out who we are soon enough."

"Hey Shortstop, think you and TNT can drop some firepower into the creekbed by the ramp without taking it or us out?" Illusion radioed.

"I'm well out of the line of fire, go to it," Earthmover radioed.

"Try and stop us," Shortstop sent back. "Keep your butts low, incoming fire in the hole," she laughed.

The night suddenly lit up as multiple laser cannons began firing, and numerous mortar rounds began to fall from the clear night sky. It would have been funny to the kids if they had been watching as the Cobra troopers scrambled for what little cover they could find.

Unfortunately for the Cobras, every move they made was seen, laughed at, and recorded by Jamie's video feed and firing system to be laughed at again later when it would be brought out for the Joes' entertainment. She and Blair had an idea how to turn the footage into seriously funny music videos, with the music from the Delta Brats1.

Just a few minutes later, Painkiller and her group reach their childhood fort- the copse of trees covering a base every bit as sophisticated as the Pit itself, which had been designated as the meeting place. All four of them notice and take note of all the weaponry that has already been deployed to protect the group.

Tommie, Terrie, Ericka and Crispin had already deployed the mines and were manning their 'appropriated' mortars. Jamie had already managed to get their heavy artillery laser cannons to where each piece could be manned by remote control and had them set up in defensive positions, criss-crossing sections and overlapping lines of fire; and the rest of the kids were either running patrols or patching up the wounded.

Ericka and Jamie were both bent over their firing systems, having way too much fun. Crispin would toss a mortar round to Ericka, and she'd drop it in after computing the trajectories that she needed and inputting them into the computerized mortar that she, Jamie, and Blair had built themselves.

Jamie would look at the monitor in front of her and gently tap a button on the board in front of her, sending laser fire where she needed to. It sounded like she was typing one of her class papers; she was firing the cannons so fast.

Some of the younger teens had helped Blair and Lindsay set up cameras in the treeline and all the way to their base from the Pit, creating their own security system, and Jamie had patched the cannons into this and the Pit's security system. All she had to do was look at a specific spot and she knew where to lay down the heat.

She powered one of the cannons down as far as she could and sent a happy little burst into the seat of one Cobra's pants, laughing the whole time, and immediately re-upping the power setting. She laughed even harder when she realized that at least six different cameras had caught her little stunt. Mischief and mayhem were her specialties, as well as inflicting physical damage to the other side with sheer muscle power.

1 A band made up of the Joe kids; the name is taken from Special Counterterrorist Force Delta, and the fact that the kids have always been accused of being brats.


	7. Chapter 7

AJ reaches into the center console and grabs a hair band, pulling her long black hair back into a bun and pulling a dark baseball cap on over it.

EJ looks up as he hears his sister's vehicle barreling into the grove in high gear. He pales as he sees Lifeline slumped in the front seat, bloody. Rushing to the jeep, he falls on his face after tripping over Tripwire. He neatly executes a paratrooper's roll and regains his footing, never breaking stride.

He reaches his objective just as Illusion and Painkiller are getting Lifeline out of the vehicle, sliding him onto a makeshift stretcher. EJ grabs the first aid kits out of the jeep and helps to take care of the wounded Joe medic and the others, taking special care as he wraps a bandage around AJ's upper arm where she had a flesh wound- one of the Cobra troopers had managed to slice her arm with his knife when she shot through the gate.

"Huh. I didn't even notice. Must have been when we hit the gate and had to wade through those danged snakes," she snarls through her teeth at the pain.

"It's going to need stitches, but you'll probably tell me to hold off until we get finished with everybody else, right?" EJ asks her.

"You got that right, bro. These guys are way more important than I am at the moment," she answers.

Jamie and Ericka had long since run out of targets to play with and had turned to their other assignments- Jamie to her medic duties, and Ericka to guard duty until they were notified otherwise.

As soon as they got finished patching the major injuries up, they all grouped around Hawk and the Joes and began to plot the retaking of their base. The teens know that the darkness and confusion is helping to hide their identities. They had been counting on this fact, as well.

"Hawk, are you sure you want to trust these people? Do you even know who they are?" asked Grand Slam, blood dripping down the side of his face from a cut on his forehead from where he'd bashed it diving over the side into the back of Ritchie's truck.

Ritchie had changed the tires on his truck that morning and just tossed the jack into the bed of the truck and when Grand Slam dove over the side, he smashed his head into it.

One of the females knelt by him and gently put a couple of butterfly bandages on the wound, wrapped the gauze around his head and taped it, trying not to hurt him any more than he already was.

"I'm sorry. I'm trying not to make it worse," she whispered as she saw him wince while she took care of the other minor wounds that he had incurred and bandaged the deep cut that diagonally bisected the palm of his right hand. It would need stitches, but they would have to wait until after they retook the base.

"That's okay," he softly replied, his eyes searching hers for some clue as to her identity. They were no further than four or five inches apart. Her hair was tucked up under a boonie hat, and he couldn't really gauge her height because of the infrequent, flickering light.

He thought that she was blond haired, blue eyed, and was something between five six and five eight. She reminded him of Hawk's daughter, Christine. It startled him to realize that he thought that he was looking at a ghost- Christine's mother, Laurel, who had been dead for fourteen years. He was so off base that it wasn't even funny.

"I trust them implicitly and yes, I do know who they are. After all, they got your butts out from Cobra's grasp, didn't they?"

"Well…. yeah, they did. But still…" Grand Slam argued.

"James, for once just shut up and let these guys plot and plan it out for us. They seem to have everything under control," growls Scarlett.

Pouting, he pulled back into the shadows where he was sitting and watched the huddle. His eyes keep coming back to one of the women. Tall and slim, the powerful blond-haired goddess that had bandaged his head and hand seemed somehow familiar to him for some odd reason. He figured that he'd find out sooner or later.

Shortstop noticed his perusal out of the corner of her eye and nudged Painkiller. "I think somebody has figured at least one of us out. I am such a dead duck. Screwed, Blued, and Tattooed. Sorry, folks," she whispered to her. She'd been slouching all night, trying to hide her distinctive height. That was one of the reasons that she was kneeling in the center of the group.

"It's okay. He hasn't quite figured it out yet. Thank God for combat cosmetics, huh?" Painkiller answered with a chuckle as Shortstop joined in. Louder she spoke, "Let's do it to it. Let's make those snakes eat crow."

"I'll bet eating crow tastes better than eating Joe does; at least from our point of view," Jamie wisecracked. Everybody in earshot cracked up.

"Tell that to your parents when they're in the heat of passion, Shortstop," Phantasm laughed. Jamie playfully swings and catches his shoulder with her fist.

All of the teens reached to the center of the circle and piled hands, EJ's on the bottom and AJ's on top. They all whoop as they break up.

Hawk calls over all of the mobile Joes. "Clutch, you'll be with Painkiller in the lead Rubicon, Steeler, Thunder, Cross Country and Cover Girl also. Earthmover will be backing you guys up and take charge of the motor pool afterwards. Your targets are the motor pool and after that if Overdose needs help with the infirmary, you'll help him. Shortstop, Tripwire, Grand Slam, Scarlett, Tollbooth, Sparks and Heavy Metal will cover you in the Cherokee. After that, you guys will liberate the machine shop and armory. TNT, you'll help cover Painkiller and Shortstop, and then aid Shortstop in liberating the machine shop and armory. Short Fuze, you, Lift Ticket, Airtight, and Blowtorch will aid her in the ragtop. Overdose, you and Snarl, Growl, Beachhead, Duke, Stretcher and Falcon have the infirmary. Wipeout, you, Apache, Rottweiler, Duke, Flint, Lady Jaye, Snake Eyes and Diplomat will have the admin offices. Mountie, Freefall, Illusion, Chuckles, Wild Bill, Ace, Barbecue, Airborne and Phantasm have the barracks, hangars and outbuildings. Gauntlet, you, Motherboard, Klutz, Hardhead, Jester, Bonfire, Fathoms, Volley and the others will stay here with me and tend the wounded. You all have your orders. Go to it. Yo Joe!"

Hawk was giving the Joes the chance to figure out for themselves who the rescuers were when he teamed them up the way he did. The problem was that none of the adults were taking the hints, and the kids all breathed a sigh of relief when they realized this fact.


	8. Chapter 8

The fighting begins as the first Rubicon bursts out of the trees, fire sprouting from all directions on her. AJ maneuvers the jeep with ease as she evades the Cobra fire, Christine's Range Rover and Serena's Dodge Viper hot on her tail. Next out of the trees was Ritchie's Chevy Silverado, followed by EJ's Hummer. Ericka's Eclipse was next with Jamie's Cherokee next in line, the Skoog twins' antique mustangs, Carrie McConnell's Kawasaki Ninja, and bringing up the rear was Cheyenne's Four-runner.

Behind them, slinking out the back way was the Battle Wagon with Trinity at the helm and ready to do some damage with it.

Carson Sikorski, Blackhawk, was their eye in the sky, having commandeered a Tomahawk helicopter from the flight line under Jamie, Trini, and Ericka's careful cover fire earlier. Chelsey Wilkinson, Stealth, was flying as co-pilot, and David Larivee, Deadweight, was on board as door gunner if he was needed.

By the time that the last vehicle burst from its hiding spot, the fighting was mostly over. A few stray shots hit the cars, but the earlier, heavier vehicles had circled around and come back for another piece of the action. They continued this cat and mouse game, circling and backtracking action all the way to the base, taking out any and all opposition.

As each vehicle reached the base's outer limits, they each took off straight for their targets, like homing pigeons.

After all of the vehicles made it onto the base and began exterminating the vermin, Klutz and Hardhead circled back to the temporary base, cleaning up any unfinished business.

Moments later, the Battle Wagon sat directly in the center of the open garage doors, taking aim and firing at anything that didn't have the Joe insignia on it. There was no way for any Cobras to take cover in the garage.

Painkiller, TNT and Shortstop begin playing a kind of feline and rodent, each driving a figure eight around the other. The Cobra snipers that were in their way couldn't get a bead on any of them. The girls were too good at spoiling their aim, and the adult Joes were plainly better shots, as were the kids when they began firing weapons themselves.

After they'd liberated the machine shop, posted their own guards and then arrived at the armory, the group with Shortstop stopped and watched for a few seconds when she began slugging it out with a massive Cobra trooper. It didn't take her but a few punches and a kick or two to disable him. Grand Slam was amazed by the amount of power that she seemed to actually be holding back while she pummeled this guy.

The song blasting from the base-wide intercoms and the speakers in Jamie's Cherokee fit the situation perfectly- it was "Tuff Enuff" by the Fabulous Thunderbirds.

Shortstop turned and looked at them. "Well? Are we going to liberate this place or not?" she asked. Her left eye was turning a deep shade of purple and swelling already, but the Cobras had the problem of her not noticing the slight injury.

Apparently, the Cobras left on the base thought that the outlying areas were safe and that their outer guard would be able to stop any attacks by anyone. These bozos didn't know what hit them. It took the Joes and their kids only a half-hour to clear the base of all the reptiles that had crept in.


	9. Chapter 9

Bodies littered the ground. You couldn't walk more than thirty foot from any building without tripping over any of the bodies. The Joes were bloody and bruised, but they had reclaimed what was theirs.

A banged-up, bruised, sore but smugly satisfied Shortstop radioed in that they had done what they had been sent to do. Motherboard responded to the message that they were on the way in with the wounded.

AJ and EJ, both licensed combat medics, as well as Jamie, Serena, Wendy, Trini, Rance, Carson, Terrie, Tommie, David, Alex and Ritchie, met them at the infirmary. Beach Head was carried in by two of the other guys, growling and snarling. AJ was in no mood for any backtalk and didn't hesitate to punch him square on the jaw with a right hook, knocking him out before beginning to stitch the long, deep cut on his leg.

Because of the better lighting, the kids actually traded parents when they made it into the infirmary. They weren't taking any chances on being found out. Jamie, because of her height and coloring being so distinctive, actually got kicked out of there before anybody caught on. She worked on the other kids, who couldn't make it in without being found out and was taking care of the worst injuries that couldn't wait for someone to get free. Trini assisted her as she needed.

Most of the kids had escaped without injury, but the few injuries they did have were easily taken care of- bruises, shallow cuts- nothing that they wouldn't have incurred just hanging around the base for a few days.

A few days later, most of the Joes are healed and are besieging Hawk with questions about the team that had helped rescue them. He keeps stalling them as much as he can until Spring Break actually starts.

All of the teens had done an incredible job of hiding the damage done to the vehicles. So well had they done their job that the Joes never had a clue that anything had happened to the cars.

There hadn't been much damage to begin with, and it was easy to hide the dings and ricochet scratches with a little help from vehicle paints that they'd 'appropriated' from the motor pool. The kids fully intended to pay them back, and eventually did.

Jamie had removed any trace of the rigging that she had used with the mobile laser cannon, and all of the parts, down to the smallest screw, had been hidden, if not gotten rid of or destroyed.

She and Carrie had removed every bit of rigging where Jamie had attached the pocket lasers that she'd perfected to the motorcycles, washed them and got them back into their garages before their dads figured out that they'd even moved an inch.

Jamie had sanded, primed, and repainted her dad's bike so that he wouldn't figure out that she'd used it, much less than used it for a race around the base. He would so kill her if he found out about it. He'd kill her even faster if he found out about the lasers and their attachments to the bikes and her use of them under fire from the opposition.

All of the weaponry had been cleaned and replaced while Hawk kept the parents busy and out of harm's way. New ammo had been ordered and the replacement parts for any broken or destroyed weaponry were being shipped as the order was put in. The biggest orders came from the machine shop, where Jamie, Blair, Ericka, Alex, David, Brian Nash, Rory Gambello, Carson and Ritchie were busy around the clock, and working in shifts, tooling and repairing the used weaponry. The motor pool was the source of the second biggest orders. Rance, Randi, DJ, Mindy, Alex, Carrie, Trini, Andy Schnurr and Gregory Kelly were busy taking care of the mechanical things.


	10. Chapter 10

Duke, Flint, Steeler and Lifeline all shudder as they check their emails the next Monday. Hawk had called a meeting for the next morning. Maybe they would find out once and for all what was going on. But why had he called for it in the gymnasium?

Lifeline was intrigued. Could it have something to do with the attack and rescue of the week before? He was starting to get bored, and he hadn't been able to figure it out on his own. He thought he'd seen Jamie Barney that night, but he wasn't certain of it enough to say anything. Maybe it was his subconscious using her as his heroine, because he was desperate to find out who they really were, and because she was so familiar and unique. The girl that he thought was Jamie was somewhere between five-eight and five-ten- too short to be Jamie Barney, whom he knew was six two and a half. And without seeing her coloring up close, he couldn't tell if he knew the girl or not, or who it was.

The girl that had gotten him out of the brig and then helped him escape was extremely familiar to him, but he just couldn't put his finger on what it was. He did realize, though, that she reminded him in a way of his own daughter, AJ.

Grand Slam hoped that it would be the unveiling of the rescuers from the week before. He really wanted to know who the blond-haired goddess that had caught his eye was. Flash, Short Fuze, Blowtorch, Tollbooth, Lift Ticket, Stretcher, Roadblock and Barbeque agreed with him. She had also caught their eyes, and they had all thought that she was really Laurel Abernathy, returned to help them reclaim the base.

Each Joe was gathered in the gymnasium where Hawk had asked them to meet him; some of them on stretchers and others in wheelchairs and most of them had bandages somewhere on their bodies. Hawk was pacing in front of the group, his left arm in a sling and a cast on his wrist; a handful of papers were clutched in his right hand.

"You all were rescued by a group of unknown people last week, right?" he asks, watching them all nod and knowing that it was the truth. "Would you like to finally find out who they really are?"

"Yeah, I would like to know," Beachhead stated. "I want to know who threw that punch."

"Yeah," Shipwreck started, "It was nice to have someone knock him out cold for a while."

Hawk called for the other team, who had been waiting in the wings.

"Some of you might recognize them, but the majority of you don't have a clue who those people were, right? Well, starting from the bottom of the pyramid, left to right, your heroes are as follows- Diplomat AKA DJ Faireborn, Crispin Hauser, better known as Mountie, Ritchie Provost- Phantasm, EJ Steen- Overdose, Serena Armbruster, or Apache, Wendy Six- Freefall, Ericka Freistadt- TNT, Jamie Barney- Shortstop, Cheyenne Provost- Illusion, and on the top, the one in charge of the gang, AJ Steen, better known as the Painkiller. Off to the side is Gauntlet, better known as Alex Falcone, Motherboard- Blair Parker, Volley- Mindy Breckenridge, Klutz and Hardhead- Thomas and Terrance Skoog, Gearbox- Lawrence Steinberg, Randi Pulaski also known as Powershift, Trinity Blais, known as Earthmover, Gregory Kelly aka Bonfire." He drags in a deep breath and goes through the rest of the list of Joe kids, "and last but not least, By-line, or Lindsay Michaels, Spearfish, better known as Sydney Willoughby, and Christine Abernathy- or Rottweiler." He pauses to take a breath, and it dawns on him what the last name was. "Christina Alicia Abernathy, what the heck were you thinking? I ought to beat your butt black and blue for pulling this stunt."

The kids break up the pyramid in true Joe kid fashion. AJ leaps off into a twisting forward flip, Jamie and Cheyenne do the same in a backflip, and Serena, Wendy and Ericka leap straight up and into a set of baskets formed by the guys on the bottom.


	11. Chapter 11

As Hawk is berating his daughter, all of the rest of the adults are either doing the same or are too stunned to move. Lifeline just stands there, stunned as he realizes that his children were the ones in charge of the rescue operations and that he really had seen Jamie Barney that night; and he hadn't been hallucinating either.

"Congratulations, kids. I think we got all of the snakes out of the base and retook it for the Joes." As Hawk said this to the quiet room, everyone starts slowly sliding away from Overdose. Storm Shadow suddenly falls from the rafters and landed face first on the floor in a "frog-splash". He is already unconscious and the Joes have no problem taking him to the brig.

"And this one is best known as 'The SBD King!" says Mindy, laughing along with everyone else.

Lifeline grabs hold of AJ's sleeve as she dodges Beach Head; unfortunately, it was the arm with the stitches that Jamie had put in it. "Why didn't you tell me? And since when did you have the smarts to pull a mission like this off?" he asks her.

She flinches as his hand closes over the bandages on her arm and winces when he pushes the sleeve up to find out what had happened.

"What happened?" he asked, looking sternly at her.

"It's nothing," she responds. "I was concentrating on getting us out of the Pit and I guess one of the snakes had a knife handy."

Both of them look up as they hear the raised voice and the sound of a powerful slap from across the gym. They watched silently as Jamie's broad, proud shoulders drooped in defeat; she turned, and pace by slow, measured pace, walked out of the building. Her long legs gave her a long stride, and when she reached the door, she nearly tore it from the hinges barehanded before striding outside and slamming her big body into her Cherokee, backing out and whipping through the gears in a bid to get away from there as soon as possible.

"And now you're going to tell me just why you all chose to put yourselves in this kind of danger," he rumbles.

"Dad," she responds, "Hawk wanted us to keep it a secret just in case of a mission like this, but we've basically been training all of our lives for this. And it wasn't just me that had the brains. We all had something to contribute, and specialties that allowed us to pull it off with a large amount of luck and a good dose of help from God."

"Not to mention a lot of stupidity from the Cobras and massive muscle and electronic power from Jamie," EJ added with a laugh.

Lifeline hugs AJ hard, and reaches over and grabs EJ, dragging him in as well.

"Thank you, you two. Thank God that neither one of you were seriously hurt. I don't know what I would do if something happened to you. I lost your mother the hard way, and I don't want to lose either of you the same way. I love you too much. And if you ever do that again, I will blister your butts. I don't care how big you get."

AJ snuggles into him, as does EJ. "Don't worry Dad," she says softly, "We won't."

"Or maybe…" EJ starts.

"Don't even think about it," Lifeline tells them sternly. All three of them burst into laughter. They all know that if they ran into the same situation that they wouldn't hesitate to do the same thing they did this time.

"By the way," Lifeline asks his twins, "What gave you two the right to practice the type of medical techniques that you were using?"

EJ looks over at AJ and they both grin and reach into their back pockets, pulling out their wallets and flipping them open to show Lifeline their medic licenses.

"When the heck did you two do this?" he asked in surprise.

"General Hawk had us, Jamie, Trini, Serena, Wendy, Carson, Rance, David and Ritchie sent through the corpsman course last summer, as well as basic training. We hate to admit it, but we had the highest scores in the whole class," EJ told him modestly. "Jamie and Trini even went so far as to take the surgeons' course while we were there."

Movement catches their eyes and they all turn to watch something strange- Deep Six was involved in PDA! The man was normally so undemonstrative that he made a couple of pissed off badgers look cuddly, and here he was, showing affection in public. All of them made a note of the date, in order to tease him about it later.

"Are you okay?" he signed to his daughter.

"Yes, I'm fine, Dad," Sydney signed back.

"You weren't hurt, were you?" he signed.

She pulled up her pant leg to show him the hand shaped bruise around her ankle. "This was the worst of my injuries, Sir," she signed. "Clutch lived up to his codename a little too well," she joked.

"That's good," he signed, laughing, and reached out, pulling her into a tight hug.

2


End file.
